Los Angeles Plays Itself

You may have noticed other comments here saying that the film is long, boring and has a droning voice over. While it is 3 hours long and has a narrator with a voice like a sedated Billy Bob Thornton, Los Angeles Plays Itself is one of the most fascinating film-crit documentaries ever made.

The director assumes that the viewer has a certain level of understanding of film theory, and that would probably help when the narrator starts citing David Thomson, Pauline Kael, Dziga Veryov and Ozu, but it's not entirely necessary to enoy the film either. All you really need is an understanding that a real place - the city of Los Angeles - is also a fictional place - the LA of the movies. The documentary is like an extended home movie made up of clips from films and interspersed with sections created by the director.

What holds it all together is an examination of Los Angeles as a place in films (locations, buildings), as a stand in for other places (Africa, Switzerland), as a record of places lost (buildings, neighborhoods, people, cultures), as focus for nightmares and dreams (SF like Blade Runner and Independence Day) and more.

While the voice over could have been paced a little better and be bit more "up", this film really rewards viewers who are willing to accept the documentary on its own terms. I found I just couldn't stop thinking about it and now, when watching movies shot in LA, I keep remembering moments from Los Angeles Plays Itself.

In much the same spirit as Martin Scorsese's "Mio viaggio in Italia" (1999), Thom Andersen's "visual lecture" on his native Los Angeles is a very personal journey. Because of rights issues involved in procuring clips from dozens and dozens of films, this project is unlikely to ever be seen outside of Museums, Cinemateques, and 'academic' settings, so you will have to actively seek it out if you want to see it. It is worth doing so - with reservations.

Because it is such a personal odyssey, nobody is likely to agree with all of it, and that would suit Director Andersen just fine. I guess I could be categorized as a "tourist who stayed" in the vernacular of Andersen's thesis. I grew up in Boston, and moved to Los Angeles in my early 20's. Therefore, MY LOS ANGELES is different from Andersen's. I don't get my back up when the city is referred to as "L.A.", but Andersen pointedly does. He finds it a derogatory and dismissive term that is used as a weapon by outsiders and tourists. As local film critic Andy Klein points out, Americans don't seem to have the same issue when it comes to the abbreviation "U.S.A.", so why is "L.A." so offensive? And, though many locals DO object, "Frisco", "D.C.","NYC", "SLC"and other similar abbreviations are becoming more and more common in our less literal society.

Some of the clips which Andersen employs last only a few seconds - acting as veritable Still Photos of certain views of the city (representing a variety of eras as well). Andersen is laudably conscientious in identifying ALL the clips used (sometimes this is a distraction; especially in those briefest of shots). Oddly, the brevity of those shots actually spurred me to wish the film were EVEN LONGER (the most common criticism of the film is that it is too long as is). Still, by the end, a remarkable portrait of a city does emerge. But, being the home of "Hollywood" (a term which also rankles Andersen - especially when it is used interchangeably with the main city itself), Los Angeles doesn't seem to exist in the world's eyes as separate from the Film Industry.

The biggest problem with the film is the narration (not Andersen's voice as others have often mentioned). Andersen is given to make sharp declarative sentences, that are too often contradicted not only by reality - but by the clips in his own movie! For instance, he makes a point about the haze over the city and declares that films ALWAYS have a gauzy look when showing Los Angeles - then provides clips which show the sharp sunny vistas (think BAYWATCH) that attract hordes of visitors and tourists. More problematically, Andersen is a 'neighborhood' guy who not only derides Hollywood, but seemingly anywhere west of Vine. For someone who is declaring love for his native city, it is odd that he dismisses vast swatches of it! Curious too, is that Andersen knowingly adopts the view of "outsiders" to the city (and the film industry) as he levies specious arguments to why "Hollywood" is so phony in its depiction of the city. Andersen certainly is better informed, but feigns ignorance to make his point.

The final portion of the movie brings Andersen's agitprop view into focus. To Andersen, racism is the dark underside of Los Angeles. As a so-called 'liberal Westsider', I have sympathy with much of what Andersen espouses (especially his parsing of the term "Nobody walks in L.A."), but it changes the focus of the film (not to mention the explosive and divisive use of a term like "genocide" to define public policy).

Again, one wishes the film were longer in order to explore some of these issues touched upon. Also, Andersen should have done another pass in the editing room. Not in terms of length, but in terms of some of the obvious contradictions in his narration vs. reality/movie clips. And , a cheap shot at George Kennedy (obviously an attempt to inject humor in the dry commentary) is not worthy of such a high-minded project (curiously, Andersen misses an opportunity to needle Kennedy again in a later BLUE KNIGHT clip). On a technical note, I must say I was disappointed that it is a Video Production (as many of the most extraordinary pieces of Cinematography are marred by a fuzzy video-dupe look) -- all the while understanding the financial and logistical reasons it is so.

This is one of the most interesting projects about cinema (as the filmed frame) that I know of. It is about the city as background, as character and subject. They were making as far back as the 1920's films as hymns to the cityscape and what life in it, 'city symphonies' they called them, but here it is about the most photographed city in the world. A place that was nothing more than a small town when the dream factories rolled in and shaped it into a myth that sustains itself. And it's entirely in terms of cinematic history, entirely cobbled together from other peoples' vision of that place.

So the essay is about the history of a city as reflected in cinema and shaped by it, about Hollywood's idea of Los Angeles overlapping with the actual place where real people live. The filmmaker has compiled clips from a large array of films; from silents and noir to 80's action and modern blockbusters. The idea is that we're looking at the background of these shots, at the actual reality and place over which is superimposed the movie fantasy.

Various insights here, ranging from the stridently interprative to the intuitively discerning. It amuses the narrator for example, how modernist architectural houses built to signify transparence are turned by movies into the dens of iniquity of shady characters simply because they look weird from the outside. How the same building could substitute as a hotel, a police station, and a newspaper office depending on the movie. How the disappearance of entire neighborhoods can be actually traced in the footage of movies filmed there. Bunker Hill was a busy, homely district where pensioners and poor immigrants lived in the late 50's, but in '84 it substitutes well as a desolate urban wasteland in Night of the Comet.

And a more interesting one. How cinema imagined in Chinatown or Who Framed Roger Rabbit, perhaps reflecting public opinion, devious schemes by shady groups of plutocrats to usurp control of the water or public transport, while the actual reality was banal; these things happened, or efforts towards them, but in the public eye and with its support.

I watched this movie at the 'Rotterdam Film Festival' in The Netherlands and beforehand had no idea what to expect. After a few minutes it became clear to me that the movie was a collection of hundreds of movie-fragments, all located in the city of Los Angeles. Being a movie freak I was very interested from that point on, and Thomas Anderson didn't let me down. A terrible amount of time and research must have been spent making this movie, and it pays off! Having been in L.A. myself I really liked all places that are shown in the movie, and all movie-fragments being shown. Unfortunately, a lot (I think to many) of old movie fragments are shown (1950-1960), which makes it a little 'unrecognizable', at least for me. After part two of the movie, I had seen so many peaces of 'old material', and together with listening 2 hours to the voice of Mr. Anderson, I became to tired to go for the 3rd hour. Nevertheless, I can really recommend this movie to anyone who likes watching movies, and likes learning more about them and about a city that was so very important in movie making!

Most people are going to say 'whoa!' at the running time for this lengthy (3 and a bit hours) documentary but it is one of the most fascinating films you can see on the subject of Los Angeles (certainly not L.A.). Andersen's monotone voice does not grate or bore and is scripted well not to tell too much or too little about the city. The running time, as any film or LA aficionado will appreciate, is not nearly enough time to fit in all that could be said, or shown, about the city, people, buildings, spaces, representations but he does very well with condensing what he has gathered.

Many critics have argued that the poor quality (it is entirely on video) of a lot (even the most recent) footage lets the piece down slightly which is true if the viewer is to appreciate the wide landscapes but matters not where he is simply trying to illustrate an oft-repeated point. People will say 'what about 'The Couch Trip' or 'where's 'Beverley Hills Cop' but this is just nit-picking a fine achievement and a labour of love that Andersen has fortunately been able to share with the world. Even if you haven't been to Los Angeles you'll love this trip through the movies.